D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 85. The other gentleman was perhaps Dr. Wharton. Ante, ii. 41, note 1.
[998] Probably Dr. Beattie. The number of letters in his name agrees with the asterisks given a few lines below. Ante, iii. 339, note 1, and post, p. 330.
[999] Johnson, in his Dictionary, defines conge d'elire as the king's permission royal to a dean and chapter in time of vacation, to choose a bishop. When Dr. Hampden was made Bishop of Hereford in 1848, the Dean resisted the appointment. H. C. Robinson records, on the authority of the Bishop's Secretary (Diary, iii. 311), that 'at the actual confirmation in Bow Church the scene was quite ludicrous. After the judge had told the opposers that he could not hear them, the citation for opposers to come forward was repeated, at which the people present laughed out, as at a play.'
[1000] This has been printed in other publications, 'fall to the ground.' But Johnson himself gave me the true expression which he had used as above; meaning that the recommendation left as little choice in the one case as the other. BOSWELL. One of the 'other publications is Hawkins's edition of Johnson's Works. See in it vol. xi. p. 216.
[1001] They are published in vol. xi. of Hawkins's edition of Johnson's Works. 1787, and are often quoted in my notes. It should be remembered that Steevens is not trustworthy. See ante, iii. 281, and iv. 178.
[1002] See ante, ii. 96.
[1003] See ante, p. iii.
[1004] She Stoops to Conquer was first acted on March 15, 1773. The King of Sardinia had died on Feb. 20. Gent. Mag. 1773, pp. 149, 151.
[1005] Hannah More (Memoirs, i. 170) describes how, in 1780, she went to one of Mrs. Ord's assemblies at a time when 'the mourning for some foreign Wilhelmina Jaquelina was not over. Every human creature was in deep mourning, and I, poor I, all gorgeous in scarlet. Even Jacobite Johnson was in deep mourning.'
[1006] In the tenth edition of the Rambler, published in 1784, the entry is still found:--'Milton, Mr. John, remarks on his versification.' In like manner we find:--'Shakspeare, Mr. William, his eminent success in tragi-comedy;' 'Spenser, Mr. Edmund, some imitations of his diction censured;' 'Cowley, Mr. Abraham, a passage in his writing illustrated.'
[1007] See ante, p. 116.
[1008] See ante, iii. 425, note 3.
[1009] Hawkins (Life, p. 571) writes:--'The plan for Johnson's visiting the Continent became so well known, that, as a lady then resident at Rome afterwards informed me, his arrival was anxiously expected throughout Italy.'
[1010] Edward Lord Thurlow. BOSWELL.
[1011] See ante, p. 179.
[1012] In 1778.
[1013] 'With Lord Thurlow, while he was at the bar, Johnson was well acquainted. He said to Mr. Murphy twenty years ago, "Thurlow is a man of such vigour of mind that I never knew I was to meet him, but--I was going to tell a falsehood; I was going to say I was afraid of him, and that would not be true, for I was never afraid of any man--but I never knew that I was to meet Thurlow, but I knew I had something to encounter."' Monthly Review for 1787, lxxvi. 382. Murphy, no doubt, was the writer. Lord Campbell (Lives of the Chancellors, ed. 1846, v.621) quotes from 'the Diary of a distinguished political character' an account of a meeting between Thurlow and Horne Tooke, in 1801. 'Tooke evidently came forward for a display, and as I considered his powers of conversation as surpassing those of any person I had ever seen (in point of skill and dexterity, and if necessary in lying), so I took for granted old grumbling Thurlow would be obliged to lower his top-sail to him--but it seemed as if the very look and voice of Thurlow scared him out of his senses from the first moment. So Tooke tried to recruit himself by wine, and, though not generally a drinker, was very drunk, but all would not do.'
[1014] It is strange that Sir John Hawkins should have related that the application was made by Sir Joshua Reynolds, when he could so easily have been informed of the truth by inquiring of Sir Joshua. Sir John's carelessness to ascertain facts is very remarkable. BOSWELL.
[1015] There is something dreadful in the thought of the old man quietly going on with his daily life within a few hundred yards of this shocking scene of slaughter, this 'legal massacre,' to use his own words (ante, p. 188, note 3). England had a kind of Reign of Terror of its own; little thought of at the time or remembered since. Twenty-four men were sentenced to death at the Old Bailey Sessions that ended on April 28. On June 16 nine of these had the sentence commuted; the rest were hanged this day. Among these men was not a single murderer. Twelve of them had committed burglary, two a street robbery, and one had personated another man's name, with intent to receive his wages. Ann. Reg. xxvii, 193, and Gent. Mag. liv. 379, 474. The Gent. Mag. recording the sentences, remarks:--'Convicts under sentence of death in Newgate and the gaols throughout the kingdom increase so fast, that, were they all to be executed, England would soon be marked among the nations as the Bloody Country.' In the spring assizes the returns are given for ten towns.